Images: Very First Alfa Romeo Finds A Home

The Very First Alfa Romeo Finds A Home With New Zealand's
Alfa Importer

The very first Alfa
Romeo, the Alfa Romeo G1, and the only one left in the world
has found a new home with Ateco Automotive, the New Zealand
Alfa Romeo importer.

The Alfa Romeo Museum, the guardian
of all things Alfa Romeo, has confirmed that it regards the
Alfa Romeo G1 as the very first true Alfa Romeo - all cars
prior to this were either Alfas, being built prior to the
purchase of the company by Nicola Romeo, or Darracq cars
built under license - and the museum has confirmed that Alfa
Romeo G1 chassis and engine number 6018 is the only Alfa
Romeo G1 left in existence.

"It is a great honour to be
owner of the very first Alfa Romeo, the car that gave birth
to one of the most famous car marques of all time," says
Neville Crichton, Governing Director of Ateco Automotive.
"We plan to complete the restoration of this magnificent and
historic car and then ensure that as many people can enjoy
it by displaying it around New Zealand and Australia."

But magnificent as
it looks today, it has had a very mixed history since it
arrived in Australia almost exactly 80 years ago.

Chassis
6018 was imported new into Australia in 1921 and was sold,
for £850, to a Queensland businessman who, soon afterwards,
was declared bankrupt.

Since he had seen his crash
coming, he hid the car to keep it out of the hands of his
creditors. Then, three years on, he had the misfortune to
die and the G1 remained hidden for 25 years, apparently
holding up one corner of a shed in the Queensland
outback.

Then it was discovered by a couple of young
jackaroos who decided it would make a fine 'paddock bomb'
for rounding up cattle, chasing kangaroos and all the stuff
that blokes do on farms. Eventually they managed to hit a
tree and the damaged car was towed back to the farm where it
was used to power a water pump. With its massive torque at
low engine speed, it was ideal for the job and the work
ensured that the engine remained in excellent condition even
if the rest of the car was brutalised.

In 1964 it was
retired from pump duty and rescued by Alfa Romeo
enthusiasts. The following year the car was bought by Ross
Flewell-Smith who, against the advice of some experts who
thought the car unrestorable, began to rebuild it, an
exercise that took ten years. In this Herculean task he was
helped by the fact that he discovered a second G1, a wreck,
which supplied many of the parts that were missing. Most of
the body was missing and, after experimenting with various
styles, Flewell-Smith took advice from Luigi Fusi who was
then curator of Alfa Romeo's museum.

Flewell-Sinith's
rebuild was good enough to win the 1977 Queensland Vintage
Car Concours and to win the 1978 Australian Mile Miglia
memorial run. In an historic race at Lakeside it was
clocked at 86 mph, remarkable performance for a 1921 car, so
remarkable, in fact, it was black-flagged for being so
quick!

In 1995, Flewell-Smith sold this car he had
nicknamed 'Milly' from the 'Milan' on the engine black, to
Julian Sterling who commissioned a restoration to his own
exacting standards. All worn parts were replaced with
specially-made components built regardless of cost. New
tyres were supplied by Michelin, made from the original
1920s moulds, costing $6,000 for the set. The restoration
was undertaken up to a standard, not down to a price, and
the work was described in the 1998 edition of the Classic
Car Yearbook as 'breathtaking'.

Following a
rationalization of Julian Sterling's car collection, the car
was bought by Neville Crichton, the governing director of
the New Zealand Alfa Romeo importer, Ateco Automotive.

The
Alfa Romeo G1 and its place in Alfa Romeo's history Alfa
Romeo had its roots in the Società Italinana Automobili
Darracq (SIAD) which was founded in November 1906 to
assemble French Darracq cars for the Italian market.
Darracq's products, however, were not suited to Italian
needs and conditions and though the new concern was intended
to build 600 cars a year, it built just 300 in 1908 and a
mere 61 in 1909. SIAD was liquidated and the factory was
bought by a consortium of Milanese businessmen who founded
Anonima Lombardo Fabrica Automobili, (ALFA).

The first
ALFA cars were based on Darracq designs but the company was
soon making cars designed by the former FIAT engineer,
Cavaliere Giuseppe Merosi, and these proved very popular.
Before long ALFA was making 3100 cars a year, then came the
First World War.

In 1915 Nicola Romeo, a successful mining
engineer and maker of a very popular portable compressor
known as 'The Little Italian' took over the ALFA factory to
build tractors, ploughs and aircraft engines. As soon as
the war was over, Alfa-Romeo (with a hyphen) returned to
making cars.

The first Alfa Romeo car (no hyphen) was
the G 1, designed by Giuseppe Merosi. The G1 was a luxury
car powered by a six-cylinder side-valve 6330cc engine, the
largest engine ever fitted to an Alfa Romeo, and this was
probably the reason why only 52 examples of the G1 were
made. It arrived on the market just as petrol prices were
raised and since the G1 returned only about six miles to the
gallon it was not flavour of the month.

The G1 was,
however, advanced for its time. The engine, with two cast
iron blacks each of three cylinders, produced 70 bhp at an
unstressed 2,100 rpm, a phenomenal 217 lb/ft torque at 1,100
rpm, and it drove through a four-speed gearbox. The chassis
was pure vintage with semi-elliptical springs at the front,
dual quarter-elliptics at the rear, a unique feature, and,
it being 1921, the mechanical brakes were on the rear wheels
only with the footbrake operating on the transmission. It
also started Alfa Romeo's motorsport heritage, finishing
first in its category in its first outing, in the Coppa de
Garda.

The G1 was the first model designed specifically as
an Alfa Romeo and it is the grandparent of the immortal Alfa
Romeo P2, P3, Monza and Alfetta as well as the modern range
of Alfa Romeos, the Alfa 147, 156, 166, GTV and
Spider.

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